


the solitude we are

by live_die_be



Series: the capacity to be alone [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/live_die_be/pseuds/live_die_be
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is lonely in a way that is so deeply ingrained; it is an essential part of who he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the solitude we are

**Author's Note:**

> not canon-compliant for series three.

_the solitude we are_

  
Sherlock is lonely in a way that is so deeply ingrained; it is an essential part of who he is.

He was lonely as a child with only Mycroft for company, since other children didn't like him at all. But even Mycroft wasn't quite a companion; he could never quite understand Sherlock the way that he wanted to be understood. Mycroft was always too concerned with social climbing and his precious career to find time enough to even try to understand him, and anyways; eventually Mycroft left too.

Mycroft left like everyone did; it's always an eventuality with people. It's not just a possibility that could happen, it's a fact that has happened and will happen again. But Sherlock lies to himself the way that he lies to everyone and tells himself that it's not ever a great loss, people are silly and stupid, and he doesn't need them.

He lies to himself like he lies to others, but the difference between him and the others is that he can never actually _believe_.

Loneliness is a motivator nearly as powerful as love, one that can be even more dangerous.  
 

John is alone. He doesn't speak to any of his family, only Harry, and even that's infrequent. It's not that he doesn't try, it's more that they're all raging alcoholics who never approved of his life choices, and eventually he thought: You don't mean anything at all to me.

With Harry it's difficult, since more often than not she's drunk when he calls, and John doesn't know to help her, or if there's even anything to do to help her. She is lost and scared and pushes away anyone who means anything to her before they can push her away because she is frightened in an old, bone-deep sort of way that they'll leave her. John will never say, but he's more like her than he'd ever choose to be.

   
Sherlock is lonely and John is alone, and they are really more suited to each other than either of them will ever admit, because they're both the proudest of men and can't stand to actually admit that they need anyone.

   
"Because he's a psychopath, and psychopaths get bored," Donovan said, and John is just starting to understand _why_.

Not that he thinks that they'll ever be standing around a body that Sherlock put there, because at the very least Sherlock knows better than to get caught. Which should really not be as much of a comforting thought as it is, but it is one nonetheless.

But he does see what she means about getting bored; if Sherlock is a thunderstorm on a good day, he's a hurricane and a tsunami on a bad one. He's a force of nature at best, a natural disaster if you're lucky.

It is so easy to get swept up in his energy, and more often than not John finds himself racing after him with veins coursing with adrenaline. His limp is almost gone, now, and he finds that he rarely needs to use the cane.

Sherlock's own, particular brand of madness must be catching.

   
They're settling into a new life together, cohabiting in one space, and it's sometimes very obvious how different this is for both of them.

Sherlock periodically forgets that John at crime scenes, though that does start to lessen after a month or so, and John sometimes inflicts his temper on Sherlock. It is not a perfect life, but then neither of them expected it to be.

It is a better one, though. For both of them.

 

John has nightmares, still. The limp is getting by the day, but the nightmares never leave and probably never will, a more constant and faithful companion than anyone else in his life.

He sometimes wonders how Sherlock can sleep through his screaming, since he knows that he does, has woken up screaming enough times to know it, or whether Sherlock does wake up and has just decided to exercise rare consideration by not mentioning it.

  
John is gone, and that's not right, is it? He should be here because he is John and John belongs here.

Sherlock is lonely and it's terrible or familiar or maybe both.

And then a pang rings in his stomach when John comes back, and a hole he didn't know was there is filled.

You forget how to be alone, Sherlock thinks. You forget the habit of being alone.

 

"Do you just carry on talking when I'm away?" John asks, curiously irritated or irritatedly curious. He's tired; the lines of his face are more pronounced and he seems to have aged while he wasn't here.

"That depends," Sherlock says carelessly, "how often are you away?"

Because contrary to what John thinks, Sherlock does notice when he's gone. He may have to say things a handful of times before realising there's no response, but he does notice.

 

With Sherlock, John thinks, you're either everything or nothing; there is no in between.

With Sherlock, you never know what will happen next, and sometimes that's exciting; it exhilarating and reminiscent of Afghanistan. Sometimes, though, it's not. Sometimes John wishes that he could find a moment to breathe. Then he remembers how it was to be alone, and chases after Sherlock again.

 

It's that awful point where just enough time has passed since the last case that the self-satisfaction has faded and he's gotten bored, and not enough time has passed for anything interesting to have come up yet. It's only a matter of time until there're body parts turning up in the fridge or the microwave or maybe even the bathtub this time; Sherlock is nothing if not imaginative when it comes to his experiments, and he never _listens_.

"We're out of tea," John calls over his shoulder. In the next room, Sherlock huffs in irritation, and there's the ominous sound of something hitting the wall. John stares at ceiling and sends a silent plea that there won't be new holes in the drywall when he leaves the kitchen.

"Then you should go do the shopping and buy more," Sherlock snipes from where he's lounging on the sofa.

"I didn't think you knew what shopping was," John snarks back. "I expected you thought that things just appeared in the cupboard magically."

"That's what you're for," Sherlock says lightly, suddenly in the doorway where he wasn't before.

"Is that what you think?" John responds, just as light. He doesn't expect an actual answer, Sherlock doesn't freely offer one, and to be entirely honest, John doesn't think he really wants to hear what he has to say.

They don't _talk_ ; at least not about anything that happens to actually matter to either of them.

There's bitterness lurking under his words and Sherlock's eyes are piercing.

 

"Is there anything you wouldn't do for me?" Sherlock asks, words honed sharp and casually cutting.

John stares and stares and stares; it's a familiar expression that Sherlock has seen so many times before. It's confusion and hurt and shock all solidified into one look, and it's never caused Sherlock to feel a reaction of his own until now. He feels something in his chest clench; it might be guilt, though he can't know because he's never felt guilt before.

(See, that's the thing about Sherlock: he's at his most perfectly cruel when he's not even trying.)

 

his thought's are all in lowercase and none of the puzzle pieces are fitting together where they should. the edge pieces are fitting into the middle and the middle pieces around the edge. it doesn't make sense, and neither does the ringing somewhere in the back of his head, like a voice spoken through deep water. it's saying, "sherlock. sherlock."

"sherlock, you have to eat," john says, clearer now, and yes, maybe that is why his head feels so slow, though that could just be because he hasn't slept in three days.

he tells as much to john, and john frowns the little frown that makes his forehead crinkle up just so. it's the frown that means 'sherlock why can't you be normal', and he's seen the exact one on mycroft's face before. "please," john pleads. "please, sherlock."

he wants to say, "i'm sorry" but the words don't make it past his lips. what comes out instead is, "if you insist," and he takes the cup of tea with shaking hands.

 

Sherlock is maddeningly brilliant, even now, sleep deprived and half-starved.

He said used to say that a lot, back when he had first met Sherlock. "That's brilliant," he'd say, and he didn't even really notice he was doing it until Sherlock pointed it out.

After that, he stopped saying it out loud. But even now, when he looks at Sherlock; with his skin pallid and dark circles under his eyes, babbling about connections between cases that John could never hope to follow, he thinks it.

You're brilliant.

 

"I don't have _friends_ ," Sherlock says scornfully, lips twisting in distaste as he leans away from the question.

It's true; he doesn't have friends, and even John is not a _friend_ because friend is too trivial a word to describe what John is.

  
"Will caring help save them?"

If John knew when to pick his battles, he'd retreat now and avoid this entirely, since there's no way that either of them will win this fight, and it's not like it's a fight that has only one, clear outcome; both of them are right and both of them are wrong, but neither are willing to admit defeat. But John does not know when to pick his battles, and the only place to move is forward. He says: "Nope," and knows that this is first blood, Sherlock getting in the first blow.

Sherlock sneers; it's an ugly expression that he probably practiced until it was effective enough. "Then I'll continue not to make that mistake."

"And you find that easy, do you?" John says, it's not quite a question because he doesn't need an answer, he already knows it.

And John does know Sherlock, enough that when Sherlock says, "Yes, very. Is that news to you?" it's an affirmation of an already existing fact.

It shouldn't be a surprise, it's not quite a surprise, and yet it is, because John had still maybe held out a bit of hope that under that cold exterior there was an actual caring _human_ inside of Sherlock, though why he thought that he's not sure. "No... no," he says, quiet and somewhat sad.

Maybe that's the worst part of it, that he's right, and why wouldn't he be, since Sherlock never did need to lie to hurt people when the truth was always so much more harsh. Caring won't help save them, so really, what's the point?

"I've disappointed you." The words are picked slowly, deliberately; this is a minefield of a conversation and even Sherlock in all his socially-awkward obliviousness is catching the clues that say this can only blow up in their faces unless they both step carefully.

"That's good, that's good deduction, yeah," John says, nodding slowly. He's tired of this. Sherlock doesn't lie or sugarcoat his words, and John never realised before now how used to lying he'd gotten.

"Don't make people into heroes, John. Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them." It's straightforward, a truth laid out bare on the table between them.

His words are unadorned but the expression on his face is impossibly open. There's an apology lurking in the depths of his pale eyes, and John feels more lost than he has in years.

 

Moriarty steps onto the scene, and something fundamental shifts in the state of the world.

Sherlock has someone to compete with, which is novel and new and entirely unpredictable. He had expected to live out his life the way he always had; a lonely black hole among a sky of stars.

Moriarty knows Sherlock in a way that Mycroft never could, in a way that even John can never, ever understand, because they are the same, and John is not the same. He knows Moriarty, knows what's driving him, what's making him do this.

(He knows, too, how this will end. There is only one way this can end.)

 

Sherlock can't be defined in words; that would be too simple, and nothing about Sherlock is simple.

John watches Sherlock, who is as nervous as John has ever seen him, says: "You're never going to stop."

Sherlock jerks, startled, and turns to stare through John, not looking at him because his mind is racing too quickly for him to focus on anything except the case. "Why should I? I'm catching criminals, John. I thought that you of all people would understand that," it's said goadingly, like he wants to fight, and John has not yet learned to pick his battles but he will not let Sherlock bait him into this.

But the thing is, John does understand, more than the other man knows, and it's because he understands Sherlock's motivation that he knows Sherlock will continue until everyone is dead. He is the sort who doesn't do anything at all halfway.

John was alone before, and he is alone now, and sometimes with Sherlock he feels like maybe this is even worse than that was before because he has tasted what true companionship is. "It's all for you. He's doing it all for you, and you're never going to stop."

Sherlock's mouth opens, and nothing comes out. In the end, he will always be unchangeable and absolute, never changing his mind especially if you actually want him to, since he's stubborn to a fault and contrary in the extreme, which is why his only answer is, "I don't want to."

" _People are dead_!" John shouts, and isn't sure why, since it's not like it'll matter to Sherlock anyways.

After all, Sherlock doesn't believe in something as simple as morals or common courtesy and why should he, when no one else seems to either.

 

Sherlock is tired and lonely and he doesn't want to play this game anymore. Moriarty was fun, in the beginning, but now he can't stop or else everything will crumble. Sometimes he thinks- he thinks it would be better if he wasn't- if he didn't-

\- but, no. He can't think that. That way madness lies.

 

"Alone is what I have," Sherlock asserts. "Alone protects me."

John's face is sad and tired and completely resigned. "No," John murmurs, "friends protect people."

Sherlock watches as John turns away, and thinks, _If only you knew_.

 

Sherlock can see the end; it's just out of sight.

They're catching up.

 

Moriarty kills himself, and Sherlock's world bottoms out. He stares at the body; imagines a world where he kills himself too, and it is good. He can see how this will go.

(You forget how to be alone. You forget the habit of being alone.)

He finds John on the pavement below, meets his eyes and sees the realisation in them, as John steps forward, like he thinks he can stop this. You thought I was stronger, thinks Sherlock. I'm not.

Sherlock steps off the edge of the building, and loses himself.

 

He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him.

 

_echoing the ocean's vastness_

 

Time is a fluid thing, and it begins to lose all meaning. Days flow into nights flow into weeks into months.

John is alone. He was alone before, and with Sherlock he was sometimes alone, but this is somehow even worse than all the days of his childhood spent quietly reading medical texts before Harry could rip them to pieces.

In an ideal world, this would never have occurred. But this is not an ideal world, and wishing is a past-time for children. John is not a child, and he's been bitter in a sort of soul-deep way ever since he first lost a patient on the battlefield. He tried not to let it affect him, because if the people who save people stop hoping, then what chance do any of them have.

But even John is not unshakeable.

 

He spends his nights dreaming of things that somehow manage to be much worse than the nightmares ever were. The nightmares had happened and were real, the dreams have never happened and will never happen; they'll never, ever be real, even if maybe, just maybe, he wants them to be.

 

The mornings brings new loss. Morning bring the reminder that he is more entirely alone than he has been ever before. Morning rips open the old scars to bleed anew.

John dresses for the day, and goes to the clinic. He treats patients who all seem to have the same, nondescript grey faces and grey voices and grey souls. He doesn't write a single word for his blog. He doesn't go to crime scenes.

He starts needing the cane again.

(Nothing happens to him.)

 

It's been years and deaths and loves since he's last seen Sherlock.

He'd never stopped hoping.

Maybe it would have been better if Sherlock had stayed dead, had remained a skeleton in John's closet, buried and long gone. Maybe it would have been better if Sherlock had actually died, if those years ago, John had seen the body and known, instead of keeping a candle of hope lit in his heart this entire time.

He opens the door and it's Sherlock standing there, worn and older than he had been before.

John would like to say it's a surprise, to learn that Sherlock, who lied about everything and to everyone, would fake his own death.

It's not a surprise.

He leans against the doorframe, drinks in the sight of him. He says, mildly, a conversation about the weather, "Been a while, hasn't it?"

Sherlock smiles bitterly, and it's a drug, seeing him. John can feel something sinking into his veins. Sherlocks nods, tips his head to the side like a question.

In answer, John steps back from the doorway. It's inevitable, that he'll let him in. Of course it is. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

 

Their hands brush when John hands over the teacup, and Sherlock freezes. Sitting in the same spots in the same flat on the same furniture, they're a caricature of what they used to be.

But it's less than that, actually; it's just a snapshot of something that could and will never be.

There is nothing left for this turn to into, the only result will be for it to fade away entirely, and they're just postponing the inevitable because neither of them can stand to be entirely alone again. (You forget, he thinks, how to be alone. You forget the habit of it.)

What has been broken can never truly be whole again; there will always be faults and cracks just waiting to break again.

 

"I came back for you," Sherlock whispers, something like sadness painted across his face.

But John has seen Sherlock play at grief before, he has no way to know whether anything about the man is sincere.

Some time ago he heard that love was a death sentence, and understood.

 

"Did you mourn?" Sherlock asks, and tips his head to the side, too-long hair falling over his face.

"What do you think?" John snaps back quickly, defensively, hunching his shoulders closer.

Sherlock is, as always, too keen, and can still see right through John like he always has been able to. He says, carefully, "Your therapist thinks that your anger is a manifestation of your grief, and she thinks that you haven't mourned properly at all."

"Yes," John says, "but what do you think?"

"I think that your anger is just that: anger, pure, simple anger."

"Am I wrong?" his voice comes from just beyond John's shoulder, and his breath ghosts across John's cheek. There's warmth along his side from where the taller man is standing too close, and it's impossibly real. A huff, then, mildly amused, and Sherlock says, "Am I right?"

John's breaths are carefully measured, but tremble on the exhale. "Do you really want me to answer that?" he asks, eyes closed.

Sherlock doesn't answer, maybe he doesn't have one for once in his life, and he steps away from John without a sound.

"I thought so," John murmurs, a little sad and very, very resigned.

John is bitterness given life and Sherlock is a hollow shell of who he used to be.

 

"Say something!" John shouts.

The thing is, though, there's nothing left to say. Everything that can be said has already been said, and this is the result.

A stand-still on that very roof that Sherlock stepped off of two years before, and as John looks over the edge he sees why Sherlock did it. The ground seems so very far away and the people small, less significant.

John was alone before, and now he is not, standing next to Sherlock who has aged at least a decade in the time that he he was gone. Sherlock, who tells lies like they come naturally, and perhaps they do: perhaps Sherlock's native language is lies, his culture secrets and mistrust.

Perhaps Sherlock should have listened more, and perhaps John should have said something when he could have, but that time has passed, and truth is a poison that will tear them apart.

Sherlock has never been one for regret, found it a foolish waste of time. Regret is pointless, choices made can't be changed. "This was not my intention," he murmurs, and it's maybe more of an honest statement than anything that's come out of his mouth in his life, even.

John isn't even angry anymore. He's past that point, and now he's just resigned to their fate.

Sherlock is too close and too much, John can smell the salt of his skin and feel breath on the shell of his ear as Sherlock murmurs, "What do you want me to do?"

"What can you do?" John asks, taking a step closer to the edge.

Sherlock twitches like he wants to yank John back to safety, but doesn't move. "Nothing."

John's eyes close, and he sighs. "Well, that's it."

Sherlock doesn't say a word, doesn't make a single sound, and when John opens his eyes, he is alone again.

It's nothing less than he expected.

 

_what locks itself in sameness_

 

"I don't want you to leave," Sherlock pleads, maybe more of an honest statement than anything that has ever come out of his mouth. "Please, stay here, with me."

John's belongings are packed, his life squeezed into two duffle bags and a cardboard box. He won't look at Sherlock, won't meet his eyes.

John says: "Don't ask that of me." He takes a deep breath to strengthen his will, snaps out, "I won't be able to refuse you, and I'll hate you for it."

It's the last and final ending: either Sherlock makes him stay, and John hates him for it, or John leaves, and Sherlock hates him for it. There are no other options. There is no easy way out.

See, they've tried and they've tried, to patch this life of theirs back together, and neither of them like to admit defeat, but.

There's nothing else to say. There's nothing left to do. They are broken, tragic people, and perhaps they never had a chance of a happy ending. Even if they did, that chance was lost somewhere around the time that Sherlock started to use lies as self defence, and John started saving other people because he knew he'd never be able to save himself.

John shoulders the bags and picks up the box, turns to look at Sherlock one last time. "Goodbye, Sherlock."

The door closes behind him, and Sherlock listens as John climbs into a waiting cab downstairs. He listens to it drive away, and then he listens to the silence surrounding him. To the empty room, with words heavy with the weight of everything he never said, he says, "Goodbye, John."

 

  
Sherlock is lonely in a way that is so deeply ingrained; it is an essential part of who he is.

 

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is much appreciated. thank you for reading!


End file.
